Gabriel Garcia Marquez statue unveiled in Cuba

A statue of late Colombian writer, journalist and Nobel Prize for Literature 1982 Gabriel Garcia Marquez is unveiled in Havana, on February 16, 2017.<br />YAMIL LAGE / AFP

A life-size bronze sculpture of the Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez was unveiled Thursday in Havana, an homage to the writer and to Cuba for its support of the peace accord with leftist FARC rebels.

The sculpture portrays the writer holding books and a rose, dressed in the traditional suit known as a liqui liqui that he wore to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

“We want to pay homage to Gabo who is so intimately linked to Havana, the Caribbean and Cuba,” Colombian ambassador to Cuba Gustavo Bell told AFP, using a nickname for the late author.

This “is a tribute, a show of gratitude from the Colombian people to the Cuban people for accompanying us in the peace process,” Bell said.

Havana hosted four years of peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym FARC.

Garcia Marquez, who died in 2014, was a personal friend of deceased Cuban leader Fidel Castro and lived in Havana for a period in the 1980s.

The statue stands 1.80 meters (5 feet and 9 inches) tall and is a “living sculpture” that shows Garcia Marquez descending a staircase.

The statue was created by Cuban sculptor Jose Villa Soberon, whose other works around the city include life-size renderings of the Beatle John Lennon and Mother Teresa.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the famous writer’s “100 Years of Solitude.”